Empowering Women Straight from the "Chair"

I felt miserable. I was either overstressed, overwhelmed, felt pushed or pressure. I felt like I was losing my mind. Scents and smells became overwhelming.

If I was driving, I would think I was going crazy with my self talk. Panic that I was behind the wheel and could just flip out and turn into someone. Every once in a while I’d see my hands on the steering wheel and wonder why my mind saw an illusion of a 90 year old’s hands.

My ability to multi-task was literally gone. I tried explaining it to my physicians,, it was if my adrenal glands were totally drained. I had lost the ability to think FAST, and now, almost in slow motion, was struggling to even make decisions. This, is what ‘they’ call ‘brain fog’.

The first half of his life is a mystery. We’ll never know what he experienced, or how he interpreted it. The wounds, the hurts, the sadness…. loneliness. Yet, we do know the second half of his life. It was with US.

April Fools Day, the road trip to meet him was long and tedious. Upon arrival, amidst his shaved body and sores on his skin, I saw into his transparant eyes. He was a keeper. A deep soul. That boy named Duncan was to come home with us that very day.

Four years of life had gone by previous to our meeting. We never knew what he had been through, nor will we. Often I envisioned he was stuck in a cage for those years. His habit was to have his head propped up on a wall, or he’d secure himself under the four legs of a chair, so he still had the sense of familiar four walls, invisible or not. I suppose my interpretation could be wrong. Nonetheless, someone had given him up, and he was mine to love, learn, and befriend.

November, 2003. The spontaneous decision to turn into the nearby clinic to grab a flu shot was mindless . After all, I had gotten a flu shot many times before. Isn’t that what all americans do? Every doctor, every nurse, every minute clinic, you see flu shot stands at the state fair, you see them ready and willing to stab you with a quickie every where you turn. It just seems like we are to get in line, like robots… with the expectation that we’ll hop on the bandwagon…..or is it more like sheep to the slaughter?

I was recovered from a mild cold, and didn’t worry much about running into the clinic near my salon, and ‘checking it off my to do list’. They handed me the ‘standard’ paper to sign. After a few ‘John Hancock’s” I had without thought signed my permission, and all recourses away. If you read the fine print, you’re literally signing away your life. 15 minutes later, I was out, done. On with my day.

We shampoo and massage your head, brush your hair, and in that relaxation, you fall into the spell of opening up to us with your thoughts, challenges, and random concerns about life. Hairdressers hear it all.

The cool news is, we have so many resources in our client base, that we truly are wisdom carriers of information. You know, that’s where we get the PH.D from… Professional Hair Dressers… lol. Luckily, our salon is in the midst of doctors, hospitals, universities, and lots of naturopaths, chiropractors, and the like. We see regulars that are computer experts, journalists, housewives..wide variety of amazing people.

One of the first questions we usually ask upon greeting is “How Are You?”. Standard question, right? In the salon, we get pretty down to business with authenticity. That means, if you feel crappy when you come in, you usually respond with the “not feeling that great today” , or “Had a rough week”.

The bottom line is, we have many clients come in that just don’t feel good. Whether it be dizzy, having heart palpitations, depressed, sluggish, overly tired, going to the doctor for this or that… it seems almost 70% of our clientele have something to say about their health on a regular basis.

Facebook is one of the many public tools I see used to impose personal opinion on others. It’s sad, since the term on Facebook… people that you see… are considered ‘friends’. Those very ‘friends’ can sometimes be extremely judgmental with their own standpoint and opinion.

We received the unexpected call from the Scottish Terrier Rescue, just prior to April 1, April Fools Day. Truth was, this was no joke. We drove an hour and a half to go see him, knowing full well, we’d be riding home with this 4 year old little boy.

Shaved due to his matted coat, first glance, he didn’t appear to be anything special. He smelled a bit like medicine. I grabbed the leash, and walked along side of him, as if it was something we’ve done a million times. We walked the edges of the rest stop, our meeting place. Definitely, he was coming home. We could love this boy. He was little, compared to our other Scottie, and he had a bigger head than we were used to. Kinda funny, in a pitiful way, it was definate he was going to be our new family member.

I’m doing a study…and as I write, things come up that are very intriguing and I frankly would love your opinions. We all deal with things differently. How do YOU deal with these things that I’ll be writing about?

For instance….

Women, how do you handle it when you have found out you’ve been deceived by your partner? Is it something you can forgive and forget? Does it eventually fade off and you get over it? Do you hold resentments?

Do you find yourself building blocks between you and your partner, especially when it comes to ability to be close? Intimate? I mean, once he’s really taught you that he is not trustworthy…whether it be he cheated, lies about his money, looking at things or doing things on the internet that is not acceptable, maybe you’ve found he’s not at work when he says he is?

Are you able to talk about it? Does he get defensive? Do you watch and observe until you have built your case enough that you are confident you must leave him?

What keeps you staying…when you find he’s done something terribly deceitful? Is it that you are scared to be on your own? Are you worried about money? Children? Once trust is broken, is there some method you use to ‘fix’ it?

These are things that I am curious about. Matter of fact, from my own resources and observations, there are women that choose to stay, some choose revenge. Some choose to become victims and lose themselves and their self esteem right down the sewer.

I am an Evolver. That may sound fancy, may even sound really impressive. I personally don’t mind the title, merely because it allows me to feel creative….because that is how I feel about the word “Evolver”.

My personal definition of an evolver is that I can begin a task then maneuver on to another. For instance, I may be on my pathway to the front door to find the leashes for my dogs to let them out, and as I am headed toward the leashes, I see a few dishes that may need to be loaded into the dishwasher, then, with my dogs half heartedly excited (because they know I am an evolver) I may then find that I need to quick multi-task on my continued journey, and make a diversion to the laundry room because I spotted dust on the dining room table, therefore needs a quick swipe with my swiffer. By this time, my poor babies, Duncan and Bo, are sitting down…waiting patiently, as they see I also needed to grab the extra of the two pair of shoes I left on the floor near the laundry room, and place one pair on my feet, then place the other pair on the stairway to go up next time I make a trip up…then, finally, I reach for the leashes. I find this very efficient, because not only have I now put away the dishes, dusted the dining room table, and placed my cluttered shoes on the stairs to go up, I am now succeeding in the original task, which was to let the boys out.

I watch as Bo plays ball and tosses his toys like he’s two years old. It defies logic, that he’s not going to be in our lives much longer. He just turned 8 years young. Bo still eats, chews on his boney, chases after loud motors, and aggressively tells motorcycles how he really feels.

When we take him out to play in the back yard, it’s as if he’s uncontrollably addicted. True to his childhood characteristics, he is vocal, talking to his ball as he bosses it across the grass, shoving it with his nose to force it our way. It’s a mixture of grumbling and half bark. I’ve never seen him jump higher, run faster, or act younger. This boy LOVES a ball.

Yet, in the quiet moments…those moments when he’s sleeping, or walking extremely slow behind me on a leash, I realize….it’s an invisible reality. His tumors are growing, his peeing is getting weaker, and he’s having difficulty maneuvering in certain positions. My boy has TCC (Transitional Cell Carcinoma). This invisible disease is taking over his insides. Continue reading →

Rejuvenating from a hectic or stressful day is imperative. However, I find the definition of rejuvenating is different for many of us. For me personally, I require literal down time. Whether it be sitting in silence, maybe taking a walk in nature and calming my mind and body, or isolating myself just until I can come back out of my ‘shell’ and re-join what else life throws at me.

There are those that prefer to ‘down time’ themselves by going outside and doing yard work, or physical labor, others rejuvenate in an opposite manner, and relax being in a crowd and socializing. Continue reading →